Wound
by HoshisamaValmor
Summary: Pain, cry, scream, run, avert, satisfaction, rinse, repeat, same exact pattern again. (Pre-canon, character study ish)


Klaus peeked curiously at the bruise on his forearm, an angry little puff of a cloud right above the top of the umbrella. It was an ugly smudgy piece of brown and yellow on the tips, which clearly meant it had been there for some days, but he hadn't really noticed it before. Klaus had absolutely no idea how it'd got there. It wasn't finger-shaped, it wasn't anything-shaped, simply looked like a bump on some place had left that little silly cloud clouding the little umbrella pierced into skin, but it was a strange place to have bumped anywhere. Shrugging, he twisted his head one side and another, twisted the skin of his wrist, seeing the forecast waver slightly away and back to the umbrella, until finally his little wonderings on the little bruise cloud started to make him chilly and sweaty and the cloud started to scream his name in different voices.

This right here was a pattern in itself.

Klaus peeked curiously at the contours of the face of the guy laying next to him on his bed. Well,_ his_ bed, the_ guy's_, not _his_ bed, Klaus'. He couldn't remember the guy's name, but he thought it sounded kind of like Tommy, or Jimmy maybe, or silly. Silly was sleeping soundlessly and peacefully, a little cloud of curls fluffily resting on the pillow right next to his forehead. Klaus had little recollection of how either of them had got there, but he could try to piece some pieces together and they were nice. Smiling sillily, he shrugged closer to Silly and cuddled against the skin of his arm, feeling a bit of warmth and remembering it for a little while before he sighed and decided he shouldn't risk waking the guy.

This right here was the pattern itself.

Klaus thought back on his siblings, but that one momentary distraction required him to do too much of what he didn't really want to do, which was thinking.

Yes, pattern.

Klaus woke up covered in sweat and shivering, so he averted his thoughts back on his siblings, turned to the guy next to him, turned to the bruise on his forearm, but still ended up shivering and hearing the screams in his head.

So Klaus did exactly the same thing he tried on those three moments after waking up, again. He stood up, threw whichever clothes he found on the ground over himself, scrubbed every single coin he could find on his pockets and Silly's, ran outside even though he heard Silly waking up and calling him, and by the time he was on the street, he heard Ben too.

"You do realize this will never work, don't you?"

"Shut up, Ben," he said softly, feeling his voice as a whimper in his throat as he bent over for a moment, the weight in his head wanting to throw him down. He couldn't see Ben right now, but God, he heard him.

"If your way is the only way, you'll never see it doesn't work."

"I don't care!" he screamed in the middle of the street, throwing his head up at Ben. Ben's expression fell, but his brother couldn't really feel the pain, not when it wasn't his own to feel, specially not when he was forced to witness Klaus' tantrums just as much as Klaus was forced to hear him and everyone else. After all, Klaus was just a crybaby, fussing about stupid stuff, running from his responsabilities, not living up to Daddy's expectations, or_ any_ expectations, and just running and running and _running_, so how could anyone really want to put up with him? "I don't care, I just can't do this right now."

"You can never do this, Klaus."

"Great, you got that part at last!" he felt himself smile rather widely, waving a little 'hello' at an old lady who had glanced at him talking to himself and straightening back up. He breathed in and scrubbed his face, tripped slightly on his feet as he tried to pick up his pace, apologized and chuckled when he bumped against someone who yelled all sorts of curses.

"Klaus." The name resonated and echoed and sent a chill down his spine because no one outside heard Ben but everyone_ else_ sure as fuck did.

"Shut up, Ben! Please! You're calling all of them!" He was so tired, and suddenly it felt as though he had been awake for hours and burning the last of his strength. He had just as much of an idea of how many hours he had slept as he did about the origin of the little cloudy bruise on his forearm. He was so tired of being tired.

"Klaus, please."

_God_, he couldn't do this, he couldn't. It never changed, he couldn't help the dead, the dead couldn't help him even if poor old Ben tried his damn best, so what else was he supposed to do? What was the logical outcome of this, where else was he supposed to run if they always followed him everywhere?

If he couldn't get rid of them, he just needed at least a little bit of distraction to gather up his strength for next time. There was no way he could right now, feeling so tired and tired and tired. Maybe next time he'd be strong enough, good enough, finally a good son and a good responsible adult, but right now he really couldn't. Maybe next time.

"Not this way you won't, Klaus."

"Since when are you a telepath, Ben?"

He kept running, fueled by the knowledge he was averting away from all that, until finally he got mindless entertainment in funny shapes of pills. The words "yes, yes, yes!" numbed down the screams and he barely caught the sight of Ben in the corner of his eye as he swallowed down the pills dry. Those few seconds before any chemical could alter his consciousness were almost better than any high could actually be because, at that moment, he was just fully aware he had done it - it'd all be gone for a few hours. He'd deal with the pain and screams later.

Rinse and repeat.

Same pattern.

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the end

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Author's Note: Just a spontaneous idea out of a bad day. Title comes from Darkest Hour song 'Wound', and so does one of Ben's lines, "When your way is the only way / You can't look at yourself and say / 'I was wrong' " The lyrics are quite awesome and befitting.

Thanks for reading.


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